Gill in Mürren, Switzerland.
Photo courtesy of Daric Gill
By Charlotte Caldwell
[email protected]
BEXLEY — A Shelby County native who has displayed his artwork across the U.S. and in over 16 countries recently had his motion-sensing light sculpture acquired by Capital University.
Full-time interdisciplinary artist Daric Gill, 41, graduated from Anna High School. He received a bachelor’s degree in sculpture and painting at the Columbus College of Art & Design and a master’s degree in sculpture and interdisciplinary art from the University of Cincinnati.
With inclusion in many galleries and exhibitions, his resume also includes being a former adjunct instructor at the Columbus College of Art & Design and receiving a handful of residencies, fellowships and grants. He now splits his time living in Columbus and New York City and frequently travels the world gaining inspiration for his work. International places he’s traveled include Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Paris, Rome, Germany, Vienna, Amsterdam and Cuba — to name a few — and he’s seen every coast in the U.S.
“I’m exceptionally fortunate to have the ability to travel extensively for my career. A few years ago, I received an art award which included a 3-month artist residency, where I lived and exhibited artwork in Germany, and have since spent a few additional summers living and traveling by train around Europe,” Gill said. “My artwork seeks to bring those experiences back to the galleries so that others can enjoy the wonders of the world and possibly be enticed to learn about the world and experience for themselves the splendors it can provide.”
The colors Gill has experienced in his travels are incorporated in “The Imagination Machine, Version 2” which is currently in the permanent collection at The Schumacher Gallery at Capital University alongside works encompassing 2,000 years of cultural history and including noteworthy artists Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gaugin and Salvadore Dali. This piece is part of a project Gill calls “The Living Machines,” or “a series of interactive electronic and robotic installations that abstractly mimic the emotional nuances of living organisms through light, motion, and/or sound. These robotic installations celebrate the immense value in what I call our ‘soft functions of being,’ e.g. excitement, extraversion, shyness, persistence, nostalgia, the ability to dream, etc,” according to Gill’s website.
“‘The Imagination Machine, Version 2’ is a motion-sensing light sculpture made from a reclaimed airplane wing. The wing is divided into two parts, each with their own artist-programmed circuit boards. Two brains (micro-controllers) run around 35 pages of codes each, which sample four motion sensors, and run multiple light programs on the LED strips. The colors are recorded from photos I’ve taken around the world. It also tallies each interaction and celebrates notable milestones by playing additional light patterns at 50, 100, 200, and 500 interactions. Part of ‘The Living Machine series,’ this responsive sculpture takes a look at the emotional intelligence of imagination and memory, as displayed by a robot,” Gill explained. Gill’s website also said the sculpture “communicates with NASA, is motion sensitive, tells time, and has a feature that can be remotely controlled from anywhere in the world.”
The airplane wing came from Gill’s friend, Mark Curtner, who helps run the Grimes Municipal Airport near Urbana. The first version of the piece was in the Columbus Museum of Art and it took Gill eight months to complete including doing the robotics and coding himself. This version has a different set of actions, which required a redesign of the control panels and codes, and took Gill seven months.
“It’s not often that a person has the amazing opportunity to work with a real airplane. For a few years, it sat in parts in my parents’ barn between Sidney and Anna, until I was given a fellowship which included the chance to create a large installation at the Columbus Museum of Art. A 20-foot long airplane wing is a perfect material, well crafted, lightweight, and full of potential,” Gill said.
While the material was easy to handle, scaling robotics to span the length of the wing posed a challenge.
“There’s always challenges when building something like this. As there’s no handbook for creating your own robotic motion-sensing winged light sculpture, the whole process is inherently steeped in problem-solving. For this piece, honestly, the biggest complication was scale. At nearly 20 feet long, I had to create a setup that could handle, well, the length of a real aircraft wing. A lot of the work was done in my small apartment, which meant that much of my living space was dedicated to the wing for a while,” Gill said. “Another interesting challenge is that the brains are all tiny electronic components that add up to not more than a handful of parts that I hand wire and hand solder. Making sure that they work and can power the whole length of the wing comes with its own challenges. But I enjoy this problem-solving.”
Gill is self-taught in robotics and electronics and has been playing with the technology since he was a kid. He credited his proficiency to his college education for helping him think more globally and online resources for entry-level codes and tutorials.
“I realized that it would be easier for me to bring the world of engineering and science into the world of art than it would be to bring art into the world of science and engineering,” Gill said.
Gill is currently working on finalizing large project proposals for galleries and work for exhibitions; planning his next trip to Europe and possibly Asia; and an interactive sculpture that can read the exact color of an object and turn it into a sound.
“I can find the same comfort in sitting at an easel with my brushes as I do cutting down wood on a table saw or soldering small electronic sensors together,” Gill said. “My love affair is with the idea-making, problem-solving, concept creation, and watching it come into form. These are the parts I live for. The final piece of art is a documentation; a way that I can share that love, my emotions, and those special moments with the world.”
To view and read more about how The Imagination Machine was made and more of Gill’s work, visit his website at daricgill.com.
